FOX, Charles (1791-1862), of Keady, co. Armagh

Of an ancient Irish family (once known as the O’Caharny), Fox was one of ten children of a county Longford gentlemen who commanded the county militia, whose estate at Fox Hall had been granted to his ancestor by James I in 1620.1Burke’s Landed Gentry (1862), i. 508; HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 830. Fox’s forebear, Patrick Fox, had sat in the Irish parliament for Kilbeggan, 1703-13, and Fore, 1715-27, and Fox was a grandson of Barry Maxwell, 1^st earl of Farnham, who had represented County Cavan and Armagh City between 1756 and 1779.2E. Johnston-Liik, History of the Irish Parliament 1692-1800 (2002), iv. 236; v. 220-2.

Born in county Longford, Fox trained as a barrister in Dublin and established a practice there. He owned jointly with his brother, Barry Fox, an estate of about 11,000 acres at Keady, co. Armagh, and also held land at Keel, near Ardagh.3Morning Post, 13 Feb., 25 Sept. 1837. The Keady estate was sold in the landed estates court in 1864: Belfast News-letter, 3 Mar. 1864. Fox had been an ‘early friend’ of Viscount Forbes, who had sat for County Longford with one brief interruption since 1806, and he chaired two meetings of the county’s ‘Friends of Independence’ in July 1830.4Freeman’s Journal, 2 Jan. 1837, 26 July, 3 Aug. 1830. He worked for Forbes against the Lefroy family at the 1830 general election, and became known as a man of ‘high station, sound principles’ and ‘considerable talents’.5HP Commons, 1820-32, iii. 831; Morning Post, 2 Dec. 1836, quoting Dublin Evening Mail. His political loyalties were not, however, set in stone, and after Forbes’s death he was brought forward as the nominee of the Lefroy family at a by-election for County Longford in November 1836, but only after a ‘very prying search’ had been made.6Champion and Weekly Herald, 27 Nov., 18 Dec. 1836. Although he boasted that he had the support of the Orange and aristocratic parties, he was beaten by a Reform candidate, and does not appear to have spoken at the hustings in what was a very disorderly election.7Caledonian Mercury, 2 Jan. 1837; Freeman’s Journal, 2 Jan. 1837; Morning Chronicle, 2 Jan. 1837; Standard, 2 Jan. 1837. However, two petitions were presented against the result, each of which cited bribery and undue clerical influence at the election. After the Liberals seriously mismanaged the nomination of the election committee, the poll was altered in Fox’s favour and he took his seat in the Commons on 5 May 1837.8D. O’Connell to J.D. Mullen, 22 Apr. 1837, O’Connell Correspondence, ed. M.R. O’Connell, vi. 34-6; CJ, xcii. 8-16, 89-90, 332-4; Morning Post, 13 Apr. 1837; Morning Chronicle, 5 May 1837; PP 1837 (319) x. 107.

Fox is not known to have contributed to debate during his short time in Parliament, and did not sit on any committees or introduce any bills. He was, however, a regular attender and divided on 35 occasions in the early summer of 1837, attending closely the committee stages of the Irish poor relief bill, and voting for Lucas’s amendment to make provision for settlement, 12 May 1837. He voted against the second reading of the ministry’s bill for the abolition of church rates, 23 May 1837.

Fox stood again for County Longford as the second Conservative candidate alongside Anthony Lefroy at the 1837 general election, both candidates ‘being mutually pledged to petition in case of an unsuccessful issue’.9Morning Chronicle, 17 Aug. 1837. Fox does not appear to have addressed the electors and his hustings speech went unreported.10Freeman’s Journal, 16 Aug. 1837. However, during another stormy contest both he and Lefroy warned the 97 freeholders struck off the poll by the previous election committee that if they tendered their votes each of them would be sued for £100.11Standard, 17 Aug. 1837. Fox came in fourth place and the result was duly petitioned, but although a large number of each party’s votes were again struck from the poll, Fox’s challenge was unsuccessful.12CJ, xciii. 17-21, 275; Morning Post, 12, 15 Feb. 1838; T. Falconer & E.H. Fitzherbert, Cases of controverted elections determined in committees of the house of commons, in the second parliament of the reign of Queen Victoria (1839), 214-60.

A member of the Armagh Constitutional Society, Fox was several times nominated, though never appointed, to the post of high sheriff of county Armagh.13Belfast News-letter, 3 Oct. 1837; Morning Post, 13 Feb. 1837; Morning Chronicle, 13 Nov. 1858; Belfast News-letter, 17 Nov. 1859. He was involved in a number of railway schemes in south Ulster, and in 1845 joined the management committee of the Dublin and Armagh Railway.14Belfast News-letter, 25 July 1845. He was also on the provisional committee of the Newry, Armagh and Londonderry Junction Railway, and was a leading promoter of a line between Newry, Keady and Castleblaney.15Morning Chronicle, 28 June 1845; Bradshaw’s Railway Guide (1845-6), 390. Although he does not appear to have sought another parliamentary seat, he maintained his interest in county Longford, speaking at a meeting of landed proprietors in December 1846, when he argued that the hardship created by the famine had strengthened the ‘mutual bond of union’ between the county’s landlords and their tenants.16Freeman’s Journal, 22 Dec. 1846.

Fox died at Mount Anville, co. Dublin in February 1862.17Freeman’s Journal, 27 Feb. 1862. He appears to have been succeeded by his eldest brother, Rev. John James Fox (b. 1792), rector of Kinawley, Ballyconnell.18E. Walford, County Families of the United Kingdom (1860), 237. His nephew, Richard Maxwell Fox (1816-56), was returned as one of two ‘Conservative Repealers’ for County Longford in 1847.19Freeman’s Journal, 13 Aug. 1847. A collection of Fox’s correspondence with his cousin, Henry Maxwell, 7^th Baron Farnham, is held in the National Library of Ireland.20National Library of Ireland, MS 18,613.